Meerkat Manor

And Meerkat Manor (English Meerkat Manor ) is a produced and broadcast by Animal Planet and the Discovery Channel docu-soap series that frames the lives of four meerkat families as quasi- soap opera. The animal docu-soap ran worldwide with great success over four seasons. In Germany, the series is broadcast by Animal Planet, among others and of DMAX.

A team from the University of Cambridge observed in the study 's ten year just across the pronounced social behavior of the animals and their development over several generations. Settle the animals are in the Northern South Africa in the Kalahari Desert. Three square kilometers of which form the territory of "family Erdmann " in the English original is called the family of " whiskers ", the series is called " Meerkat Manor " (estate Erdmann ). The alpha female flowers ( "Flower" ) leads to the partial up to 44 animals large clan. She wears a transmitter; Cameras record the activities of the social predators, so that researchers can examine the group dynamics and the behavior of the animals and put together the TV series.

Excerpt from the description of the series in Animal Planet ( Premiere ): "Big Brother in the Kalahari Desert: The main characters are 30 centimeters high, inhabit underground caves and feed on worms, insects and lizards. This documentary series observing the daily life of the Whiskers, a group of meerkats in the Kalahari: eat, sleep, fight, love, have children and die. It 's almost like us humans. By the way, the Meerkats are also funny, lovable, curious and above all very telegenic. "

So far there are 4 seasons à 13 episodes, each episode is 20 minutes.

Trivia

• In China and Japan, the series is one of the television programs with the highest audience ever. In Asia, but also in the United States the names of the animal family members are known to almost every child. The stuffed animal version of, for example, Mitch, Shakespeare, flowers or daisy sell there as well as in Germany, the plush version of the polar bear Knut.

• The series is called in the original " Meerkat Manor " (estate Erdmann ). In English is called " Meerkat " So meerkats. This name has nothing to do with the German word " monkey ". Monkey is in German a name for a genus of the subfamily of the cheek pouch monkeys. In the English -speaking world has for meerkats of the Afrikaans borrowed term " Meerkat " enforced. ( Guenon is called " guenon " in English. )

• Two of the main characters - Shakespeare and Tosca - no longer appear in the second season. The production team has no information on the whereabouts of the two family members, even though the cameras run along 24 hours a day. In the first episode of Season 2 is reported in the German synchronization but the fact that Tosca has the hard winter did not survive through the exile and Shakespeare an attack of Grabowski fell victim. The main character, Floral, dies in the third season of a snake bite.

• 2007 series for an Emmy for cinematography was nominated for a documentary.

Season overview with the titles of German episodes

Season 1:

Season 2:

Season 3:

Season 4:

Specials or special programs:

• The Queen of the Meerkats (approx. 73 min)
• Tosca the Meerkat (approx. 49 min)